Reversible Computation 2026 convenes in Torino
The field's main annual gathering returns in July, a sign of how quickly reversible computing has grown from a thermodynamics curiosity into a research community with hardware, languages and theory of its own.
One field, many layers
The 18th International Conference on Reversible Computation (RC 2026) takes place on 9–10 July 2026 in Torino, Italy. RC is where the strands of the subject meet: reversible programming languages and program inversion, reversible circuits and hardware, quantum computing, reversible models of concurrency and biochemistry, and the thermodynamics of computation that ties them together.
That breadth is the point. Reversibility is not a single technique but a property a system can have at every level — a language whose programs run backwards, a logic gate that loses no information, a physical process that produces no entropy. RC is the venue where those levels are compared.
Why it matters now
For most of its history reversible computing was studied for what it revealed about the limits of computation rather than for products. The energy wall now facing AI and data centres has changed that: the same logical reversibility that keeps Landauer's toll at bay is suddenly of direct commercial interest, and the conference's hardware and tooling tracks reflect it.
Source
Details from the Reversible Computation conference series. See also our academic reading list for the foundational work the field is built on.